


sous la peau

by FLWhite



Category: SKAM (France), SKAM (TV) RPF
Genre: Banter, M/M, Making Out, POV Alternating, Public Display of Affection, Tattoos, all lust no caution, can you feel the tension tonight?, maxel, slight bone app the teeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:54:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21539281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FLWhite/pseuds/FLWhite
Summary: A rendezvous with Maxence on a cool fall evening that Axel is late to."Anyway, so. I'm thinking of getting a tattoo."
Relationships: Axel Auriant-Blot/Maxence Danet Fauvel
Comments: 11
Kudos: 50





	1. a multiple-entry visa to Hell

**Author's Note:**

> I went to France in the autumn. I got a new tattoo. And voilà, another exercise in erotic tension. 
> 
> As always, if you enjoyed, please check out my other SKAMFr/Maxel works, as well as those of my partner in crime, [zetaophiuchi(hallo-catfish)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryuujitsu/pseuds/zetaophiuchi).

Axel is late.

Axel is never late.

At first he thinks to himself, _ah, it's only three minute past the hour, don't be an idiot_. He flicks forward a few songs in his playlist; he rolls another cigarette.

Eight minutes. He can't resist the urge. He lights the cigarette and takes a deep draw. He contemplates ordering a second beer.

Fourteen minutes. Now he's opened his Recent Calls and his thumb hovers over the icon of Axel making a ridiculous face, telling himself that he really will dial in another sixty seconds. But then Axel is scampering into view, coated, hooded, and with hat pulled low, slipping and slithering between the little tables of laughing people, cozy in their wicker patio chairs under heat-lamps running at full force on this damp cold November evening. "Sorry, sorry."

"Oh good," he replies, trying not to sound too relieved, as they _bise_. Three times. Axel smells of rain and, faintly, geraniums, same as he had while taping in Eliott and Lucas's apartment earlier in the week. He'd wanted to tease Axel about the _new personal fragrance_, but had forgotten somehow at the time and it doesn't feel like it'd make sense to bring it up at the moment, so he says instead, "Thought one of those rental scooters had run you down at last. Revenge for that dumb video you shot with the boys, with your circus tricks."

Axel blows through his pursed lips dismissively. His hair, at least the tufts of it that are visible under the hat and hood, is almost golden in the sepia light. "Revenge, bah. I was showing the world the full potential of the mighty _trottinette_. Didja order for me already?"

"Well, no. In case you never showed, I wouldn't have wanted to drink your fruity garbage."

"Ooh, _ouuuuch_." Axel signals for the server, who appears with almost magical speed at their table, and orders his usual Riesling. He eyes Maxence from under the brim of his hat, his mouth already crooked upward at both corners. "Hey, sorry, really. I was uh—doing some research, uh—actually, I should be asking _you_ this?" He begins to grin. "Actually, you would be the expert."

"Are," Maxence puts on his most blasé Model Face, "you already drunk?"

Axel waves his hand as though shooing away the accusation. "Not _drunk_. They had some champagne for me at the agency dinner. Anyway, so. I'm thinking of getting a tattoo."

The Model Face fails catastrophically for a moment. Axel raises one eyebrow until it nearly touches his hairline. "What, is it that ridiculous?"

"Uh, well. No, but—" An unwonted mental image of Axel's arms drifts before him; he's still surprised, each time he sees them, by the sailor-like firmness of the muscles, the bowstring tautness of the tendons in the wrist and fingers. Across these, he imagines ribbons of ink, flowers and skulls, lines and dots, runes and mysterious numbers, hearts and swords, filling all the warm space between wrist and shoulder. Then: leafy boughs or skeletal wings across the meat of Axel's chest, just under the collarbones. Sinuous animals rampaging down Axel's sides, baring their canines at his hipbones. Even as he grits his teeth at his own wayward mind, he feels himself starting to flush. "But do you even have an idea? Of the design?"

The light is too dim to tell for sure, but there might be a knowing slant in Axel's grin. "You're the one who likes to draw. And you have tattoos." One of Axel's hands, encased in a gray woolen fingerless glove, creeps across the table and takes Maxence by the right elbow. "I liked that new one, the big one."

"T—they wouldn't do the same design on you," he mutters. "Or—not because it's _you_. They wouldn't repeat it on anyone." Visions of tattooed hands gripping Axel's thighs haunt him. Two days ago they kissed on the mouth just once for the camera, once for the first time in more than six months, and ever since he's been (pathetically, stupidly, he tells himself) regretting that David hadn't asked for more takes, that the scene had been all of fifteen seconds long, that he can't stop thinking about all manner of things that he really hopes don't show in his eyes right now.

The last kiss before this one on set, for example. That kiss in May, far too early in the morning, a goodbye kiss across his own threshold. Him, desperate as Axel was turning to go; Axel's little jump of shock that faded so smoothly and so quickly into an embrace that he'd felt like they were little automatons on gears, clicking soundlessly together on the golden clock of some beheaded nobleman. _Stop, stop it_, he tells himself, but his mind gleefully dives directly into the properly _ancien regime _debauchery that had followed. He shuts his eyes for a moment against the lecherous magic-lantern show. Faintly, he says, "Anyway, you? Tattoos? I'm shocked, you old man."

"Show me, though, show me." Axel leans far in, casting a shadow across the tabletop. "Your first, which was it?" His fingers pry at the sleeve of Maxence's coat. "I bet it was the music, wasn't it? The staff?"

"No, no—" he starts, nearly spilling the dregs of his _demi_ down his front, feeling the rubbery toe of Axel's sneaker against his ankle under the table.

"The wire, then, it's the wire here, very edgy, you goth." Axel, smiling like a warmly dressed Cheshire Cat in need of a haircut but with incredible dental hygiene, pretends to squint at him, assessing. "I bet that was it, that was the first. When? Did you sneak out of the house and get it without your parents knowing in lycée?"

"No. No, I won't tell you, you, you—you nuisance." Maxence takes refuge in his beer.

Axel continues showing off his excellent teeth. "I got it now. I knew it. It's the _Life_, isn't it. The pectoral of Life." And he tries to reach for the spot where the word is, inked over Maxence's heart, but he can't quite reach and Maxence leans back barely in time, lowering his glass to parry Axel's hand. Three of Axel's fingernails tinkle against the glass, but with the din of his blood in his ears, Maxence hears hardly anything.

"Look," he is forced to say at last, brusquely, as there's no beer left to pretend to drink, "I should get home. There's a thing, a workshop, tomorrow, early."

Suddenly, Axel seems to wilt; his smile shrinks like it's melting. "Stay a little longer?" He taps his glass, which, catching the heat-lamp's light just right, is casting glowing rings on their hands. "I've barely started."

"That's not my fault, is it," replies Maxence, trying again for flippancy, with an internal wince at Axel's rapidly drooping mien. "Fine, a little longer."

"I," Axel begins, eyes large but not quite focusing on Maxence's face. With a grunt, he pushes back his hood, pulls off his hat, and runs a hand through his wild cloud of hair, which, if powdered and ribboned, would have served him well at the court of Louis XV. "I was hoping to, um." Now he's staring at the edge of the table with a small frown. He picks at the palm of one hand with two fingers of the other. He is adorable. "You know."

The crashing in Maxence's ears grows. He frowns also, because it'd look stupid to burst into a grin right then. And he doesn't dare let himself think that this could be going where some part of him thinks it might be going. "No?"

"_Maxe_. You _know_." Six months of barely seeing each other, six months apart, had been a hell he hadn't let himself recognize as hell until that kiss on camera the day before yesterday. But if that's what it took, though, to make Axel look up at him like this, with wanting almost to the point of despair, seeming about to burst for things he's not willing or not able to say—if Hell was what it took, then Maxence might be willing to buy himself a multiple-entry visa to Hell.

"But you've barely started," he says, as fast as he can get the words out, before he loses self-mastery completely. He reaches to tap Axel's glass. Axel closes a hand around his wrist and with the other seizes the glass, tips it to his lips, and throws back the wine like it's a shot. Their server, chatting with a colleague by the door of the café, looks mortally offended, as does the older pair of heavily be-ringed women who are their nearest neighbors. It's all Maxence can do not to cackle aloud.

"Let's go then," says Axel, dropping onto the table several Euro more than what their bill could possibly come to and pulling his hood back on. "Come on."


	2. my key works on it every time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Here, here, and here," Maxence is saying, looking and sounding like he's had at least five beers, "one big design. Parallel lines, perfect circles, swirls like waves. All this, all of it."
> 
> *  
They make it home; they make out.

_Heat rises,_ is all he can think. It's certainly risen to fill Maxence's little garret, stuffy as the mouth of Hell; it's surging now to his own head, which feels like it's about to take off like a hot-air balloon. But all he says is "You got a new plant."

"Three new plants," replies Maxence, lifting his chin toward the small pots above the cabinet while standing over Brian's terrarium. Despite the bit of cigarette ash on his lapel and the stubble coming in, as always, a little unevenly over his jaw, Maxence is so immaculate and so charming that Axel wants to bite him. Maybe he'll have turned out to be a perfectly decorated pastry, a flawless bonbon, all this time. He imagines his teeth sinking in with a sugared crunch, his jaw closing around a warm soft center.

"That's good." How stupid: now that it's clear what they're here for, and they're actually here, Axel feels paralyzed. _It's the heat, it's got to be the heat_. "Well, they look pretty happy. It's like a greenhouse in here."

"Well, you have nineteen layers on. Coat rack's in the same place." Maxence steps nearer; Axel forces himself to inhale deeply. But all Maxence does is begin peeling his own coat off. "Or does _Monsieur_ wish for me to take his for him?"

"If it won't trouble _Monsieur_ too much, yes," Axel hears himself saying. He feels the first drops of sweat beginning to trickle between his shoulder blades.

"_Monsieur_ has to unbutton his coat first."

"Perhaps—" all of a sudden, he needs to clear his throat; _fuck, fuck_, he thinks furiously at himself, _way to _totally _ruin_ _the moment, you idiot_—"perhaps he can receive a bit of assistance there as well."

"Very well," Maxence bends so close that Axel feels the hairs of his nape prickling. As slowly as though wading through pitch, Maxence reaches over Axel's shoulders with both arms and undoes the top button of Axel's coat, his rings clacking against the metal. Axel watches, trembling with the effort of not moving, not daring to exhale; as the button comes undone, he lets his breath out in a huff and, before Maxence can start on the second, has twisted around to mash their mouths together, dragging on the loose ends of Maxence's scarf, biting, pressing, practically roaring. They stumble together, creaking the floorboards, tearing at each other, and come to a staggering rest against the counter where Maxence's little four-spot convection stovetop and littler kitchen sink are.

"Ah—fuck," Maxence breathes when he resurfaces, tugging himself away; at Axel's noise of protest, he adds, "you're garroting me! Axel!" He giggles like he's already high from the lack of oxygen, and Axel reluctantly releases the scarf, which slithers to the floor at their feet, joining Axel's toppled hat. With vicious jerks Axel finishes pulling himself free of his coat and lets it, too, fall; he can hear himself panting like a sprinter, but whether it's echoing off Maxence's walls or merely the inside of his own skull, he can't tell.

Maxence never tastes real. Anyone else would be reeking of tobacco and beer, but not this creature: velvety, faintly sweet, and practically commanding you to taste him again. A taste that, if they bottled it, would be described as rain, as nighttime, as lightning. Axel touches the back of his hand to his lips. Every time—and this is, he is pretty sure, the seventy-second time—he comes away from kissing Maxence, it feels like his mouth should be blistered and burning. "Come back," he whispers. "Maxe."

Maxence has recovered from his fit of giggles, and lolls against his counter, eyes nearly closed. They glint bluely through their lashes at Axel. "You didn't need my help, after all, _Monsieur_." But Axel sees the bob in his throat, the slight twitch of his fingers gripping tight the handle of the oven door. Before he can tell Maxence to join him in coatless hedonism, though, Maxence adds, breathlessly, "And the rest?"

Axel starts to reply, then clacks his mouth shut; Maxence is shifting against the counter, crossing his ankles, coat rustling. A very faint glow of sweat is showing at his hairline, and the apples of his cheeks are pinking even as Axel watches. _Ah_, thinks Axel, finally catching his breath, _ah, I see_. He curls the fingers of both hands under the neck of his hoodie, trying to move as deliberately as he can bear. Wordlessly, biting his lip to keep his glee from showing, he begins to pull it up, letting the T-shirt beneath be carried along with it. As he wrestles both over his face, he allows himself a grin of triumph. There's nothing like seeing Maxence eager, wanting it, sweating for it. For _him_.

But then Maxence surprises him, closing the distance between them in a stride; he can't see with the clothes still stuck around his head, but he can feel Maxence's hands hovering hotly over his naked sides, and Maxence's voice coming from a bare few centimeters above him. "I think you should get inked here," Maxence says, laying his palms against Axel's ribs, first on one side, then the other. "Something big, something splashy."

The hands stroke up, then down, with too much pressure to tickle and too lightly for Axel to let himself fall into them as his shaky knees and rabbiting heart demand. He struggles, grunting, with his twisted hoodie and the T-shirt that is uncomfortably pressing on his jaw. "Why do _you_ still have all your," he begins, muffled, and then Maxence's right hand is sliding not at all shyly under the waistband of his joggers while Maxence's left hand is hauling him free of his entanglements. "_Your_ clothes," he finishes, blinking his hair out of his eyes.

Maxence answers by putting his tongue in Axel's mouth.

An unknown amount of time later, Axel finally succeeds in liberating Maxence from coat, pullover, and the long-sleeved shirt underneath. With a whoop, he tosses the shirt toward a far corner of the room, where it drapes itself becomingly over a low shelf, and looks down with a smirk at Maxence, lying diagonally across the bed, straddled by Axel across the hips. The moment of victory is alloyed somewhat, Axel is forced to admit, by the fact that he is completely naked, stripped of even his socks, and has been for most of however long it's been since he took his shirt off. To make matters worse, Maxence's hands are still roaming. They tap against the base of Axel's spine, skim down to—too briefly—cup his ass, then flit around to stroke his belly, delicately avoiding going any lower than his navel. "Here, here, and here," Maxence is saying, looking and sounding like he's had at least five beers, "one big design. Parallel lines, perfect circles, swirls like waves. All this, all of it."

A fingertip caresses the mole at the base of Axel's neck; he shivers. When Maxence's mouth, greedily sucking, replaces his finger there, Axel can't suppress a moan. "Your—pants. Why—still on—ah—" He twitches himself forward, trying to get some merciful friction against Maxence, but is held at bay by Maxence's hands, tightly bracketing his waist.

"And here, a lock, on a chain all the way 'round your neck, I think," Maxence says, tonguing the mole. "Since my key works on it every time."

"That's it, that's enough," Axel growls, and heaves himself to rest on all fours. Gratifyingly, the shock of their bodies colliding, skin to skin, shuts up Maxence's soliloquy. He lifts his mouth and presses it against the _Life_, stark and black against the flush staining Maxence's cheeks, neck, and chest; he glides his lips wetly to the nipple adjacent and gives it a not very gentle nibble. Maxence convulses beneath him, but he holds fast, imagining himself as a pool of ink spreading ineluctably across Maxence's skin as he applies his mouth and hands almost frantically to each mole and freckle he can find.

Maxence's hands swoop to his shoulders, into his hair, drag him closer still, and one of Maxence's legs is flung over him: a lock, or an anchor. Under its weight, he can feel them grinding together, the fold of the fly of Maxence's jeans against him almost too rough to bear. "Off," he grits through his teeth, leaving pale tooth marks in the flesh of Maxence's shoulder. "Off already."

He draws back and watches as Maxence begins to wriggle free of his jeans with impressive dexterity. _And plenty of practice_, some sulky part of him whispers, but it's interrupted by Maxence again laying hands on him, tugging at his wrists with another look from under the downcast eyelashes that is surely meant to be irresistible, and is. "Help me, Axel, please."

Axel will later be secretly proud of himself, in this moment. "I thought you said you had a workshop early?"

Maxence's eyes widen, blinking; his face grows pinker still. Then he begins to laugh. "Fuck my workshop."

Still restraining himself by drawing upon a reservoir of fortitude even he did not know he possessed, Axel says, managing to keep his voice perfectly nonchalant, "Is that a euphemism? We don't need those, do we, Maxe? Aren't we friends?"

It is Maxence's turn to growl. It'd be more intimidating if he weren’t punctuating each word with giggles. "For _fraternité'_s sake, take my pants off, M'sieur." He bucks, yanking at his waistband with a little groan of effort that, to Axel's ears, is almost more profane than anything he's done or said the whole night.

Axel swallows and swallows again, feeling his willpower slipping perilously. It's not easy clinging to reason when every milliliter of blood in one's body is trying to fit into one's erection. He puts his index fingers through two of Maxence's belt loops and, together, they work the denim down to Maxence's knees. Axel stares at Maxence's crotch, or, more accurately, at the yellow-and-pink pattern of minute octopi and sea stars on a faded field of navy stretching tight over Maxence's crotch.

He remembers them, of course, from their last night in May, here in this same too-warm attic, before Avignon for him and seemingly everywhere in the EU for Maxence. He remembers the taste of them, and the faint brine of Maxence underneath. Nothing else makes sense, he realizes in an instant. Not his stupid weird scrounging for an excuse to touch Maxe in the hours since they'd decided, via text, a place and time to meet that morning. Not his insistence to himself that he smelled funny after the agency dinner, which had in turn mandated a stop at home to change. Not his panicked walking in tiny circles before his mirror, at the exit of the metro, around the corner from the café, rehearsing lines he cannot now remember. None of it but the warmth of Maxence, here, beneath him, around him, under his skin.

"Axel," Maxence says, eyes unblinking, lips barely moving.

He tips forward again, urgently, to fasten his mouth on Maxence's before anything truly stupid can tumble out of either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy (American) Thanksgiving. Grateful as ever for the opportunity (?) to write tawdry fanfiction and to share it with y'all. I'm fairly sure we will actually get THREE seasons of SKAMFr in 2020, and one of them will be Eliott. Who's already putting on their clown makeup?


End file.
